Run Away
by SamanthaLeigh1
Summary: Harry lies in bed remembering.


I have no idea where this came from, but it's been running around in my head for a while now. Lyrics are from Linkin Park's "Run Away". Harry and everyone else who escaped into here aren't mine. If they were I'd be able to run "Escape From Monkey Island" on my computer... and perhaps I'd be dating Orlando Bloom... now THAT would be nice...  
  
This is another "remembrance" vignette, this time starring Harry. Perhaps I'll make it into a series... I have an idea in my head about Remus... with the words to Meatloaf's "On A Hot Summer Night"... not like THAT!  
  
I wanna run away Never say good bye I wanna know the truth Instead of wondering why I wanna know the answers No more lies  
  
***  
  
Sometimes, Harry remembered sunshine.  
  
Lying in his bed, in his cupboard, late at night, the darkness smothering him, on the edge of sleep, he remembered sunshine. And laughter.  
  
He remembered red hair. Long red hair that caught the sunlight and shone. He remembered tangling his fingers in it and laughter.  
  
Lots of laughter.  
  
He remembered a man with messy hair and glasses like his. For some reason he remembered a motorcycle. And he remembered a big black bear of a dog.  
  
Sometimes he wondered what had happened to that dog. Surely it would have been offered to the Dursley's with him. He liked to think that it was with one of his parent's many friends (because of course, they always had many friends), happy and free. He had invented a whole family. With a little girl and two boys his age. And one day they would come to rescue him from the Dursley's.  
  
He hated to think of the alternative. That the dog had come with him and had been turned out into the street as Uncle Vernon had threatened to do to him so many times.  
  
Harry shook his head, rubbing his eyes against the edge of his pillow and rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.  
  
He liked it best at night, even when Uncle Vernon locked his door. When he could lie for hours on end, thinking, and remembering.  
  
Harry remembered singing, although not what song. He remembered music, although not what tune, and as he lay in the darkness, trying his hardest not to move, or even breath for fear of breaking the spell of memory, he grew happy.  
  
He remembered that someone had once loved him.  
  
But as hard as he tried, he could never slip completely into his memories. He would move, or there would be a noise and he would crash back into the present and he would once again be Harry Potter, the orphan, with no parents, no dog, no laughter and no sunshine.  
  
When the morning came, the memories that had seemed so vivid the previous night would be faded, hazy and he would wonder if he were imagining things.  
  
He'd never seen a picture of them. Why would his mother have red hair? Her sister, his Aunt Petunia, was blonde. Who was to say his father had glasses? Or that they'd had a dog? And don't even get him started on the motorcycle.  
  
He'd once made the mistake of asking Aunt Petunia about her sister. Standing alone with her, in the kitchen, pushing Uncle Vernon's bacon around on the pan as she scurried about the table setting out the cutlery and dishes, he'd thoughtlessly asked if his mum had had red hair. She'd paused, started, horrified and the dish she was holding slipped out of her grasp and shattered on the floor. He'd jumped, startled and she had strode across the kitchen and slapped him across the face so hard that his glasses had flown off his face and hopped several feet across the linoleum, breaking neatly in two.  
  
"Don't you ever speak of them in my house again." she'd hissed, through clenched teeth, her eyes red. Terrified, he'd nodded his agreement and kept his promise.  
  
But, he thought mutinously, he'd never promised not to think about them.  
  
And think about them he did. Although he didn't truly remember what they'd looked like, he held fast to his nightime remembrances, for the darkest times weren't at night, but when he looked at the Dursleys and as twisted and vile as they were, they were a family, they had people who loved them.  
  
At those times, Harry would slip his glasses down his nose so the Dursleys would become one blurry mass and before the tears could prick at his eyes, he would remember the sunshine.  
  
And a dog. 


End file.
